Eye On Europe: New rules on hog castration: Europe's search for a solution

Tuesday, December 2, 2008

Plans already underway in Switzerland and the Netherlands to ban traditional hog castration have stimulated ideas that should reduce stress on the operators as well as the male hogs

by NORMAN DUNN

Switzerland has determined that no hog castration will take place without anaesthetic as from 2010 and already some retailers are refusing to market meat from traditionally castrated males. In the Netherlands, an alliance of food trade, retailers and farmers has agreed to call a halt even earlier – from March 1, 2009.

A timely launch this winter by Dutch hog equipment suppliers Schippers offers one answer to the problem. This firm's semi-automated Pigsleeper features a computer-controlled CO2O2/O2 supply to a bank of three metal holders into which the heads of young piglets are fitted. The piglets lie on their backs and are held in position with a ratcheted bar on their back legs, leaving their scrotums exposed for rapid and easy surgery.

Under the Pigsleeper is a gas cylinder and pressing a button on the controlling computer allows a flow of anesthetic into each headpiece. A 30-litre CO2/O2 bottle (70 per cent CO2 and 30 per cent O2 works best, according to developer Guus Schippers) is enough for 800 piglets.

Within 45 seconds, the piglets in the pig sleeper are narcotized and a red light on the computer changes to green. This means that operations can start. Gas supply is stopped after a further 30 seconds. The castrated piglets are then released and recover within a few minutes.   

"Advantages," says Schippers, "include the absence of piglet squealing that is very stressing for both animal and stockperson during the traditional operation. The system is mobile so that it can be safely moved from pen to pen with no extra movement of pigs to a central point. One person can carry out all activities. Wounds are clean and heal quickly. Also, before the anesthetized piglet fully recovers, there's time to carry out other routine tasks, such as tooth grinding or tail docking."

Cost using the CO2/02 gas mix with the Pigsleeper is reckoned by Schippers at 23 to 25 Canadian cents per piglet.
The Pigsleeper can also be used with the Isofluran anesthetic that is commonly used in Switzerland. The Pigsleeper and CO2 anesthetic has been extensively tested at the University of Wageningen in the Netherlands (Animal Science Group, Sterksel Institute) and the Isofluran is currently being tested in the Switzerland and has been tested in the Netherlands, too.

The needle offers a bloodless answer
Chemical castration – or "a vaccine against boar taint," as Pfizer, the developing company,  prefers to call it – is an alternative to the scalpel. The vaccine is called Improvac and has been submitted for European Union approval with expectations that it will be released for use in the first or second quarter of 2009.

Improvac vaccination encourages the pig's own immune system to restrict naturally hormonal stimulation of sexual development and possible production of boar taint.

\The treatment has, in fact, been permitted in Switzerland since 2007 and is successfully being applied in other countries, mainly Brazil and Australia where it was first developed for use with male sheep to avoid work-intensive castration of these animals.

But use for piglets is the main target for Improvac in Europe, according to Pfizer. Two injections are required, one at 30 kilograms liveweight and another six to four weeks before slaughter. Trial results revealed by Pfizer show performance of the vaccinated male pigs are better than those for castrated animals. It is claimed that much of the muscle-development advantages of uncastrated pigs is retained by chemically castrated ones.

No cost has been decided, but it is thought Improvac treatment could initially run to "several Euros per pig" until use is widespread. Price will then fall, according to Pfizer. 

Concrete sow bath helps keep the peace
European organic hog production regulations demand an outdoor run for the animals. But this means that mud-filled wallows are quickly created by sows – with all the hygiene and nitrate run-off problems these can cause.

But, whether the sows are indoors or have the luxury of an outdoor run, it's not only organic farmers who recognize the value of a wallowing area in letting sows express their natural instincts and keeping aggression levels down.

One very hygienic solution is being developed by Werner Geissler and his team at the state institute for swine breeding in Boxberg, Germany. There, a 15-centimetre-deep concrete bath has been built for dry sows with plenty of room for them to splash around in. Hygiene and pollution risks are avoided because the Boxberg sow pool has a bed of slatted concrete and, underneath, a sluice system which directs all water into the farm manure storage system when opened.

Geissler, a hog researcher and farm advisor, runs batches of 36 dry sows at a time in housing with an outdoor run and a concrete pool area of 16 square metres. For hygiene reasons, he reckons that it's better to change the pool water once a week. Getting into the pool is made easier for the sows with some shallow steps built into one side. The steps are slatted too, so that all water and manure runs down into the sump below the pool flooring.

The building space per batch of 36 dry sows at the Boxberg institute includes a straw-bedded lying area with 1.4 square metres per sow and a part-slatted feeding area with 1.7 square metres per sow, plus a partly-roofed and slatted outside run including the new concrete sow pool. Total area per sow for the outside area and pool is 2.3 square metres per sow.

Free-range hogs slaughtered at 45 kilograms give gourmet pork
Trials with slaughtering hogs at 45 kilograms liveweight in Denmark have reportedly produced very high quality pork. "We believe the product is so good that consumers will demand it once they have tasted it," reckons Dr. John E. Hermansen, leader of the lightweight hog slaughter project and head of research at the Faculty of Agricultural Sciences, University of Aarhus.

He admits that this meat will cost more to process with a selling price per kilogram in the stores definitely more than present pork, which is generally produced from 90-kilogram hogs.   

The Aarhus University trials have so far been conducted with hogs on a free-range system, run outside with their litter mates and fed an organic ad lib diet.

Another plus is that male hogs in the litter do not require castration to avoid danger of boar taint in the meat, because they are well under sexual maturity with this early-slaughter system. This could be an important advantage in future for farmers because consumer pressure against castration – at least without anaesthetic – is growing in Europe.

Experts in Denmark caution that a lot more development work in the processing and marketing side is required before lightweight hogs can be launched in the stores. But earlier sales probes have proved that the public is certainly willing to pay more for the gourmet experience.

Omega-3 enhanced pork seeks more markets in Europe
At least three premium meat-marketing concerns in Europe are starting up sales of pork with what they claim are enhanced levels of omega-3 fatty acids. They are thus following the example of Canadian companies such as Manitoba-based Prairie Orchard Farm.
As in Canada, the perceived European demand is from consumers wanting meat which offers at least some protection against cardiovascular disease.

So far, two European organizations are enhancing the unsaturated fatty-acid content of their pork by contracting farmers to feed predetermined amounts of linseed extract to their hogs. Under its "SwissPrimGourmet" label, the Swiss Traitafina company is using Danish Duroc terminal sires with Swiss Yorkshire or Landrace for more intramuscular fat and claimed more taste. In the Netherlands, "Bon Vivant" the marketing arm of the national Scharrelfleisch organization, bases production on hogs from hybrid sow herds kept outside year-round.

British company Bio-Innovations, an offshoot of swine breeder JSR Genetics, is connected with a further Dutch omega-3 enhanced pork-marketing project through the supplying of feed supplement Vitomega to producers. This doesn't use linseed as an omega-3 boosting ingredient, but instead a concentrate featuring tuna fish oil.

Dr Grant Walling, director of research with JSR Genetics, explains that in tests the fish oil has proved more efficient at enhancing unsaturated fatty acid levels in meat than plant-based supplements. Disadvantage of the fish-oil: "It's slightly more expensive than linseed."

While promotions for the premium pork are gaining impetus on the European mainland, JSR's attempts to launch the idea in Britain have run aground because of the costs involved. For feed alone these can be as high as seven to eight Canadian cents per kilogram of dressed carcass. "This extra money has to be collected through even higher increases in prices for main joints, the loins and the hams, because there's no market for enhanced omega-3 content in cheaper cuts and sausages, for instance," explains Dr Walling.

"This is a cost that most British processors and retailers cannot see the public paying at the moment."

The importance of that first drink for colostrums levels
The general increase in average litter size with 13.5 liveborn in Denmark, 11.2 in Germany and 12.5 in the Netherlands means that fostering is a must in most herds, with interesting variations in technique from one country to another.

Experts agree, however, that the main criteria involve shifting on the strongest and biggest piglets to give the rest a chance and the notion that a good drink of colostrum with resultant healthy blood antibody levels is crucial to survival for all.

Underlining the importance of that first drink are recent Dutch results indicating that the first four piglets born (and therefore first to the udder) have an average 48 per cent higher level of blood antibodies from colostrum than the following litter members. Based on this, the advice in the Netherlands is to mark the four firstborn with a spot of colour and foster them out after 12 hours, so giving their litter mates more chance of colostrum.

In Germany, leading hog production adviser Björn Markus from the feed firm Bröring Dinklage advises ensuring fair shares of colostrum by "splitting." He recommends colour-marking the first six piglets in the litter. After they've had a good pull at the udder, they should be separated from the rest of the litter and sow with a plank barrier in the creep or similar.

After about two hours they should be left free to suckle with their litter mates for another two hours, before being taken out again. Markus reckons that this method helps ensure that the weaker, later born piglets get their share of colostrum too.

Between 12 hours and 48 hours after birth is when fostering is best, he stresses. BP